legal study on the geopolitics of outer space

The infrastructure that keeps the global economy running is increasingly in orbit. Satellite systems now underpin payments, navigation, communications, supply chains and national security – assets so embedded in modern life that governments across the world have moved to designate them as critical national infrastructure. As major powers and commercial operators compete for strategic advantage in space, the legal framework governing them is fracturing under the strain of a world it was never designed for.

Three issues have direct commercial and legal implications:

1. A fracturing legal order. The cooperative framework established under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty is giving way to competing governance models, national legislation and bloc-based approaches. For businesses, this increases legal uncertainty around access to orbital slots, spectrum, satellite data and future space resources. Capital-intensive projects across financing, operations and underwriting now face a more volatile regulatory environment.
2. Who controls space infrastructure. Earth observation, communications and broadcasting, and position, navigation and timing data from satellites are now integral to decision-making and operations across finance, insurance, energy, agriculture and infrastructure. Governments are asserting greater control over commercially provided satellite data and communications services on national security grounds. For corporates and financial institutions, this raises real questions about data continuity, operational resilience, contractual risk, force majeure exposure and reliance on space-enabled services during periods of geopolitical tension. Many developing nations are also seeking to strengthen their autonomy through the development of national space programmes and the procurement of sovereign satellite capabilities.
3. Sanctions and export controls. Space technologies sit at the heart of tightening sanctions and export control regimes worldwide. Dual-use export control rules are expanding to capture emerging technologies such as advanced computing, AI, quantum and semiconductors – many of which are embedded in everyday commercial supply chains. The result is heightened compliance risk for lenders, investors, insurers and corporates with cross-border operations.

Looking ahead, unresolved issues around space resource extraction, space debris, and the use of commercial satellites in military operations will further test existing legal frameworks. These developments increase the likelihood of disputes, regulatory intervention and liability exposure – factors that boards, risk committees and deal teams can no longer afford to treat as peripheral.

A fracturing legal order

On 1 April 2026, four astronauts launched aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center, venturing farther from Earth than any human has travelled since the Apollo era. Over ten days, Artemis II carried its crew on an arc around the Moon and back – completing a historic lunar flyby on 6 April before splashing down safely in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on 10 April. It was the first time in more than fifty years that human beings had approached the Moon. The last crewed lunar mission was Apollo 17 in December 1972. The intervening half-century has not only seen vast advances in technology, but also a vastly different strategic environment – and a global economy that has quietly become dependent on the infrastructure that space provides.

The original space race was a product of Cold War rivalry, but also, paradoxically, the period in which the superpowers negotiated the international legal framework that still governs space today. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty.  established space as a shared domain, committed to peaceful use and accessible in principle to all nations. For decades, these principles provided a stable framework for scientific collaboration, satellite deployment and international space missions.

Artemis II launched in a different world. China and Russia are pursuing their own lunar programme through the International Lunar Research Station. India successfully landed a rover near the lunar south pole in 2023.  That region has become strategically significant because of evidence of water ice, a resource with potential for sustaining human presence and producing rocket propellant. Where resources are at stake, the law of property and sovereignty is never far behind.

Those principles are now being tested by the ambitions of states and the commercial enterprises racing to exploit the resources and orbital positions that space has to offer. The current moment differs from earlier periods of space competition in a fundamental respect. Private capital, commercial launch providers, satellite operators and technology companies are now embedded in the infrastructure of national security, economic productivity and strategic competition in ways that the architects of the UN space treaties could not have anticipated during the Cold War era. The legal framework has struggled to keep pace and continues to evolve.⁶

Space as critical infrastructure – and who controls it

Space infrastructure has become inseparable from the functioning of the global economy. Satellite systems underpin communications, navigation, financial infrastructure, environmental monitoring and defence operations. The strategic value governments place on that infrastructure is reflected in their allocation of spending.  In 2024, global government spending on space programmes reached US $135 billion, of which US $73 billion – 54 per cent – was allocated to defence-related activities.

Governments are not only protecting existing assets in orbit but developing capabilities to contest them. A number of countries have demonstrated or tested anti-satellite technologies in recent years, highlighting the vulnerability of commercial and military satellites alike. Russia’s 2021 direct-ascent anti-satellite test generated a significant debris field that forced ISS crew to take shelter. China's counterspace programme has accelerated across direct-ascent weapons, electronic jamming and co-orbital manoeuvring. The United States has established Space Force as a dedicated military branch, reflecting its position that space must be defended and, if necessary, contested. France, India and the United Kingdom have each taken comparable steps through renamed services or new joint space command structures.

In December 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14369, ‘Ensuring American Space Superiority’, committing the United States to returning astronauts to the Moon by 2028, establishing a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 and deploying nuclear reactors on the lunar surface – underscoring the extent to which space has become a domain of active strategic competition.

Alongside these military developments, public and private investment has created a new category of infrastructure that sits uncomfortably between commercial enterprise and sovereign capability. SpaceX’s Starlink network – authorised by the US Federal Communications Commission for up to 15,000 second-generation satellites – is now so deeply integrated into military and civilian communications that it has been described as critical national infrastructure in all but name. Europe’s Eutelsat OneWeb is expanding its constellation of over 600 low-Earth orbit satellites through a new Airbus Defence and Space manufacturing contract, partly to underpin Europe’s ambitions for strategic autonomy in space communications.  China's state-backed Guowang constellation makes no pretence of separating commercial from sovereign functions – it is sovereign infrastructure by design. The line between commercial operator and strategic asset is blurring, and with it the legal and regulatory frameworks that have historically treated the two as separate categories.

Nowhere is that blurring more apparent than in the treatment of satellite-derived data and services. Governments retain regulatory authority over satellite operators licensed within their jurisdictions and have demonstrated a clear willingness to exercise that authority. Whether the service in question is Earth observation data, communications connectivity, navigation signals or spectrum access, national security considerations can override commercial arrangements rapidly and with little warning.

In March 2025, the United States suspended Ukraine's access to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's imagery platform, which aggregated data from providers including Maxar Technologies, Planet Labs and Capella Space, as part of a broader pause in intelligence support to Kyiv. Similar restrictions have applied in the Middle East, where access to high-resolution imagery from US-licensed providers has been curtailed during periods of heightened military activity. Both examples illustrate the same principle: that commercially contracted satellite services can be switched off or constrained at the direction of government, with immediate operational consequences for operators and their customers.

For companies operating across communications, Earth observation and navigation services, managing contractual obligations to customers when access to services is subject to regulatory intervention – through force majeure clauses, material adverse change provisions or otherwise – is an important a legal consideration as the underlying licensing regime itself.

Sanctions and export controls

The commercial space sector operates at the intersection of some of the most complex and rapidly evolving areas of international law. For companies active in the sector, geopolitics is a direct source of legal and financial risk, with the potential to disrupt operations, void contracts and expose businesses to significant liability. For lenders, investors and insurers, exposure to space sector assets or supply chains carries with it a set of sanctions and export control obligations that belong on every deal team's checklist.

Export controls

Export controls are among the most technically demanding compliance challenges in the sector. Space technologies are, almost by definition, dual-use – that is, technologies developed or used for civilian purposes that also have potential military applications, and are therefore subject to export licensing controls in many countries. Satellite components, launch systems, propulsion technology and Earth observation equipment all fall into this category. Across key jurisdictions, these regimes have been actively strengthened in recent years:

• United States: The US’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Export Administration Regulations remain the most globally significant regimes, given the pervasive reach of US-origin technology through international supply chains. Their extraterritorial effect means that non-US companies working with US-origin components or technology are subject to US controls, regardless of where they operate.
• European Union: The EU’s dual-use export control framework is set by Regulation (EU) 2021/821, which operates as a Union-wide regime not only for exports but also for brokering, technical assistance, transit and certain transfers of dual-use items. The EU updated its Dual-Use Control List in November 2025 under Regulation (EU) 2021/821 to reflect internationally agreed controls and commitments under multilateral export control arrangements, including the Wassenaar Arrangement.
  
  The 2025 update added new controlled items relevant to frontier technologies, including quantum technology, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and computing integrated circuits and electronic assemblies. This shift was driven in part by concerns that Russia had been using its Wassenaar membership to block consensus updates since its invasion of Ukraine, prompting the EU to act unilaterally to close the gap.
• United Kingdom: The UK’s export controls regime is governed by a legislative patchwork, but controlled items can be found in the UK’s strategic Export Control List.
•  In certain specific circumstances, dual-use items not found on these lists may also be subject to export controls. Similar to the EU, the UK’s export controls regime covers not only exports, but also brokering, technical assistance, transit and certain transfers of dual-use items. In recent years, the UK has amended its Strategic Export Control Lists, including updating them to better capture advanced computing, quantum technologies and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
• Australia: The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Act 2024 (Cth) came into full effect in March 2025, introducing three new criminal offences covering deemed exports, re-supply and the provision of services involving dual-use and military goods listed on the Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL). Penalties reach up to ten years imprisonment and fines of AU$825,000 for individuals and $4,125,000 for body corporates.
• Japan: Amendments to catch-all export controls under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA) took effect in October 2025, introducing new restrictions on high-risk dual-use items including semiconductors and space objects (and parts thereof). A prior notification system was also introduced in December 2024 for overseas transfers of key technologies, reflecting growing government concern about technology leakage to countries of strategic concern.
• AUKUS: A notable development across the US, UK and Australian regimes is the establishment of licence-free environments for transfers between AUKUS partners, streamlining technology flows within the trilateral arrangement. For companies operating outside the AUKUS licence-free framework – including those with employees or contractors in non-partner jurisdictions – it adds a further layer of complexity to an already fragmented compliance landscape.

Sanctions

Sanctions regimes present a related but distinct set of risks for space sector participants, and one that extends across all major jurisdictions. The exclusion of Russian launch services following Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the most operationally significant recent example – companies that had contracted with Russian providers faced immediate disruption and difficult questions of contractual liability under force majeure and material adverse change provisions. In Alumina and Bauxite Company Ltd v Queensland Alumina Ltd [2024] FCAFC 142 — which affirmed the first Australian court decision to consider sanctions in the context of a commercial supply arrangement — the Full Federal Court of Australia held that a force majeure clause in a supply contract was properly invoked in response to autonomous sanctions imposed on a Russian national that ultimately owned (through a series of interposed corporates entities) the counterparty to the contract.

The consequences of sanctions extend beyond launch services. In the EU, the Russia sanctions framework includes restrictions on goods and technology suited for use in the aviation and space industry, and can extend to related financing, insurance and certain maintenance and repair services. The UK has similarly prohibited the provision of insurance or reinsurance services relating to aviation and space goods or technology to persons connected with Russia, among a broader set of prohibitions that may affect space sector participants.

For space sector companies, that challenge is structural. A single satellite programme will typically draw components, software and technical expertise from multiple jurisdictions, each subject to different licensing and sanctions screening requirements. A launch arrangement may involve a provider in one country, a payload from another and a ground station in a third. The intersecting obligations this creates – across export controls, sanctions, spectrum regulation and data distribution rules – require a coherent cross-jurisdictional compliance strategy, not a series of jurisdictional reactions.

Emerging legal challenges in the next phase of space activity

Several emerging issues are starting to shape the next phase of space law. The legal framework governing space resource extraction remains unresolved at the international level. The 2020 Artemis Accords – signed by 62 nations since 2020 – take the position that extracting space resources does not constitute national appropriation under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, effectively endorsing private ownership of extracted materials. This sits in direct tension with the global commons approach of the Outer Space Treaty and the Agreement 1979, ratified by only 18 states, with Australia the only nation party to both instruments. Several states have moved to fill the governance gap, with Luxembourg, the United States, the UAE and Japan all enacting domestic legislation recognising private rights over extracted space resources – a divergence that represents a genuine source of legal risk for operators considering capital commitment to lunar or asteroid activities.

Space debris is where the consequences of regulatory gaps are most immediate. With over 54,000 pieces of debris larger than ten centimetres currently in orbit, and commercial mega-constellations continuing to grow, binding international rules on mitigation, active removal and liability apportionment remain absent. Work is being advanced by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including through the development of the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities, but enforceable obligations have yet to materialise.

The integration of commercial satellites into active military operations adds a further dimension, raising unresolved questions about whether civilian protections under international humanitarian law apply when commercial infrastructure is being used for intelligence, surveillance and logistics support in conflict.

On-orbit servicing, in-space manufacturing and space-based infrastructure represent an emerging frontier that existing treaties were simply not designed to address. Regulatory frameworks will need to evolve to keep pace.

Conclusion: Navigating a new orbital order

The UN space treaties provided a reasonably stable legal foundation for space activities across several decades. That stability is now under structural pressure, driven by rising strategic competition between major powers, the rapid expansion of commercial activity and the proliferation of national legislation that existing multilateral frameworks were not designed to accommodate.

The practical implications extend well beyond the traditional space industry. For financiers structuring space sector transactions, export control and sanctions compliance is now a due diligence imperative. Insurers and underwriters face a related challenge – the integration of commercial satellites into active military operations raises coverage questions that existing policy frameworks have not yet resolved. For corporates that rely on satellite-enabled services – from payments and navigation to logistics and ESG monitoring – government intervention in data access and regulatory fragmentation present real operational risks. For satellite operators themselves, the legal framework governing what they are building, launching and planning to extract remains fragmented, contested and in significant respects unresolved.

On 10 April, the Artemis II crew splashed down safely in the Pacific, completing a mission that marks both an end and a beginning. The cooperative legal order that made the space age possible is giving way to something more contested, more commercial and more consequential for the businesses and institutions that depend on it. The decade ahead will determine what replaces it. link